You'll have to help
us, Lettycoco.'
The girl kept silence. Then for a time the conversation became
graver. It was interrupted precisely at the end of the granted hour.
Letty went to see her friend on Sunday afternoon, and the two shut
themselves up in the dainty little chamber. Adela was in low
spirits; with her a most unusual state. She sat with her hands
crossed on her lap, and the sunny light of her eyes was dimmed. When
she had tried for a while to talk of ordinary things, Letty saw a
tear glisten upon her cheek.
'What is the matter, love?'
Adela was in sore need of telling her troubles, and Letty was the
only one to whom she could do so. In such spirit-gentle words as
could express the perplexities of her mind she told what a source of
pain her mother's conversation had been to her of late, and how she
dreaded what might still be to come.
'It is so dreadful to think, Letty, that mother is encouraging him.
She thinks it is for my happiness; she is offended if I try to say
what I suffer. Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!'
She put her palms before her face; her maidenhood shamed to speak of
these things even to her bosom friend.
'Can't you show him, darling, that--that he mustn't hope anything?'
'How can I do so? It is impossible to be rude, and everything else
it is so easy to misunderstand.
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